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How Los Angeles Deflected Mexican Immigrants to the American Heartland
Once in the United States, immigrants can settle wherever they choose, and they usually choose to settle where kin and friends already reside.
Because of this tendency, called network migration, Mexican immigrants, until quite recently, overwhelmingly selected just three states for settlement: California, Texas, and Illinois. As late as 1980, these three states were home to 83 percent of all Mexican immigrants in the United States (see Table 1). In 1980, Mexican immigrants represented approximately one-third of all immigrants in the United States.
Given this highly unequal settlement pattern, Mexican immigrants were highly visible in the three traditional states, and virtually invisible elsewhere in the United States. As a result, most Americans were neither aware of nor concerned about Mexican immigration. This inattention also meant that political pressure on Congress to reform immigration was relatively weak.
However, between 1980 and 2000, the Mexican immigrant population of the United States increased from about 2.1 million to nearly 9.2 million.
After 1980, but especially in the 1990s, Mexican immigrants began to leave the three traditional states and settle in so-called new settlement states, cities, and regions where Mexicans had not previously resided.
Mexican immigrants in the traditional states were more frequently female than in the new settlement states. They also resided in larger households and had more children. However, the educational levels and age of the Mexican immigrants was approximately the same in the new settlement and traditional states as of both 1990 and 2000 (see Table 2).
Mexican immigrants inhabited 269 metropolitan areas of the United States in 2000 whereas, in 1980, they had inhabited only 215 (see Table 3).
Mexican immigrants also moved down the urban hierarchy between 1980 and 2000. In 1980, 49.2 percent of foreign-born Mexicans in metropolitan areas resided in one of the 10 largest metropolitan areas of the United States. By 2000, this percentage had declined to 37.3 percent.
This trend has changed the labor and housing economics of thousands of cities and towns, often drastically. Consequently, the people living in such areas have become more interested in the politics of immigration.
Some new-settlement cities have objected to the unexpected immigrant influx. Most notably, in an effort to deflect illegal immigration elsewhere, cities like Valley Park, Missouri, and Hazleton, Pennsylvania, introduced ordinances that required people to prove they were legally in the United States in order to rent housing or to obtain employment within the city limits.
However, these municipal ordinances are of dubious legality because the Constitution vests all authority to regulate immigration in Congress.
In July 2007, Hazleton's ordinances failed a preliminary test in federal district court. Should the Supreme Court agree with lower-court rulings, these cities and towns may seek another approach — quite possibly one that is based on the experience of Los Angeles. The reasons immigrants, in particular Mexicans, moved away from the country's second-largest city are both economic and political.
Economic Causes of Dispersion
In immigration theory, a migration push is the "stick" and a migration pull the "carrot" that persuades people to cross international borders. Recent research shows that migrants also react to pushes and pulls when they decide where to settle within the United States.
An internal economic pull means Mexican immigrants increasingly select nontraditional states for settlement because they know they can find jobs in them. On the pull side, accumulating evidence shows that Mexican immigrants have connected with employers, especially in the eight so-called new-settlement states of Massachusetts, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Reliable access to employment caused the immigrant population of the eight new-settlement states to increase fourfold between 1980 and 2000. Of all Mexican immigrants who arrived in the United States within five years of the 2000 census, these eight states' share increased from 4 percent in 1975-1980 to 16 percent in 1995-2000.
An internal economic push means that immigrants left the traditional states (or did not go to them at all) because they knew that economic conditions there had seriously deteriorated. Sociologists Rubén Hernandez-Léon and Victor Zúñiga have shown that Mexican immigrants have followed migration networks directly from Mexico to carpet factories in Dalton, Georgia, for example.
On the push side, the long-term, high-volume immigration of Mexicans and Central Americans to the three traditional states, and especially to metropolitan Los Angeles, did tend to deteriorate immigrants' economic circumstances.
To be sure, the impact of Mexican immigrants' economic competition on the wages of nonimmigrants has been slight. However, the impact of their competition on other Mexicans has been great.
In 1980, Mexican immigrants earned more in Los Angeles than in the three traditional states, and more in the three traditional states than they did outside this core. By 1990, that situation had been reversed (see Table 4).
The 1990 mean annual income of Mexican immigrant adults was lower in Los Angeles, lower in California, and lower in the three traditional settlement states than in the eight new-settlement states or the 39 other states. In addition, Mexican immigrants' rents were also lower outside the traditional settlement states (see Table 4).
These discrepancies increased between 1990 and 2000, which helped push Mexican immigrants out of Los Angeles and toward nontraditional cities and states.
Political Causes of Mexican Dispersion
Two political causes also have contributed to the dispersion of Mexican immigrants from California and from Los Angeles. First, as Mexican immigrants' economic condition worsened, local and state public officials became aware of their increasing poverty.
This distressing poverty was associated with the spread of slums and sweatshops in which Mexican immigrants lived and worked. In the 1980s, Los Angeles was home to the nation's largest and most prosperous garment industry, and many of its garment factories operated in sweatshop conditions.
Slums and sweatshops had long been illegal in Los Angeles, but the enforcement of anti-slum and anti-sweatshop ordinances, as well as the enforcement of minimum wage laws, had been lax. It is important to note that, between 1980 and 2000, California consistently raised the state's minimum wage above the federal level. By 2000, California's minimum wage was 12 percent higher than the federal level. In 1998, only eight states had set their minimum wage above the federal level.
To combat immigrant poverty, high-profile law enforcement of these ordinances sharply increased beginning in the late 1980s and continued through the 1990s. Although enforcement of ordinances and wage laws did not eliminate sweatshops and slums, enforcement did slow their growth below the rate of immigrant influx.
In addition, wages fell in the garment industry due to competition from abroad. Caught between intensified labor law enforcement at home and international competition, the garment industry began to leave Los Angeles for other U.S. states (with lower minimum wages) and other countries. The industry's labor force in Los Angeles decreased one-third between 1997 and 2003.
In effect, the enforcement of anti-slum and anti-sweatshop laws helped push, or deflect, Mexican immigrants from Los Angeles to other parts of the United States. At the same time, enforcement succeeded in upgrading the living standards of the 63.3 percent of Mexican immigrants who were not deflected. If the bottom third of any income distribution is removed by deflection, the average income of those remaining will increase.
Suburban housing activists in Los Angeles provided the second political source for deflection. Surrounding the immigrant-friendly central city are 87 independent suburbs, many zealously protective of their expensive, low-density, homeowner way of life. Called nimbies (an acronym for "not in my backyard"), suburban housing activists successfully resisted external political pressure to change local housing codes in order to accommodate low-income people.
In the 1980s, Mexican immigrants were a growing proportion of Southern California's low-income population, but nimbies also targeted poor whites and blacks, the elderly, and the homeless. Nimbies particularly objected to political efforts to authorize more higher-density residences (mainly rental housing) in suburbs than existing zoning laws permitted.
Facing concerned local voters, who opposed low-density housing, suburban mayors and city councils decided not to authorize higher-density residences. As a result, the suburban ring around central Los Angeles choked off market-driven expansion of low-income housing for poor immigrants.
Zoning laws thus also helped deflect high-density renters, who included Mexicans, from homeowner suburbs. Written in the 1950s and 1960s, the zoning laws were not meant deflect immigrants, but that was their unintended effect in the 1990s.
How Many Mexicans Were Deflected?
Using census data, we can calculate that the Los Angeles metropolitan area deflected a million immigrants to other metropolitan areas in the United States between 1980 and 2000. Deflection mostly affected Mexicans, but it also affected all foreign-born persons. Between 1980 and 2000, the foreign-born population of the United States increased from just over 14 million to 31.1 million, but the City of Los Angeles (not including the counties around it), with 1,512,720 foreign born in 2000, saw its share of the total national foreign-born population decline from 6.8 percent to 4.9 percent.
If the City of Los Angeles had maintained its share of the national foreign-born total in 2000, it would have been home to 2,114,800 foreign born instead of 1.5 million, a difference (or deflection) of about 600,000 immigrants.
The number deflected rises if we only consider Mexican immigrants, this time in the five-county Los Angeles metropolitan area. The metropolitan area's share of the Mexican foreign-born population of the United States declined from 32 percent in 1980 to 17 percent in 2000. Because of this decline, the five-county area had a foreign-born Mexican population of 1,530,280 in 2000 instead of the 2,491,068 it would have had, had it maintained its 1980 share of the total. The difference comes to 960,788 Mexican immigrants who did not live in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in 2000.
That is, the actual population of Mexican immigrants in the Los Angeles metropolitan area was nearly one million smaller in 2000 than it would have been without the relative reduction in the area's share of the national population of Mexican immigrants.
Policy Issues in Deflection
The economics of free labor and housing markets will continue to encourage Mexicans to disperse from traditional but saturated destinations to nontraditional but unsaturated destinations — and even to bypass the traditional destinations altogether in favor of new ones.
Now that the consequences of deflection have been identified, deflection may become a conscious element in political deliberation in cities and states that have experienced recent inflows.
Los Angeles' experience with deflection suggests that localities can slow the influx of immigrants.
The policy tools that can work, depending on the existing economic conditions of a given locality, include low-density residential zoning, a high minimum wage, and zealous local enforcement of occupational, industrial, and housing laws. States and cities have the prerogative to enforce these types of laws.
Based on the federal court decision in the Hazleton case, it seems likely that states and cities do not and will not have the right to enforce ordinances that mandate proof of legal status to work or reside in a given place.
Of course, the policies that enable deflection are neither free nor universally popular. Mexican immigrants will not be the only people offended or affected when localities expand enforcement of occupational, industrial, and housing laws.
Law enforcement costs money, and it imposes annoyance, delay, shortage, and aggravation upon the unoffending citizenry as well as upon the employers and slumlords at whom these laws are directed.
Similarly, a higher minimum wage can drive away jobs for low-wage immigrants, but it can also drive away low-wage jobs that native-born teenagers and minorities rely upon.
Low-density zoning inhibits the influx of low-income immigrants, but it also reduces population growth in localities, restricting the income opportunities for local property developers, building trades unions, and other members of the municipal growth machine.
It would not be surprising, though, if communities that have followed or considered the Hazleton model decide to take a Los Angeles-type approach instead.
Ivan Light is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. This article is based on his book Deflecting Immigration: Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006.
Bean, Frank D. and Gillian Stevens. 2003. America's Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity. New York: Russell Sage.
Durand, Jorge, Douglas Massey, and Fernando Charvet. 2000. "The Changing Geography of Mexican Immigration in the United States, 1910 – 1996." Social Science Quarterly 81:1-15.
Hernández-León, Ruben and Victor Zúñiga. 2005. "Appalachia meets Aztlán: Mexican Immigration and Intergroup relations in Dalton, Georgia," in Victor Zúñiga and Ruben Hernández-León, (eds), New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Light, Ivan. 2006. Deflecting Immigration: Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage.
Light, Ivan and Michael Francis Johnston. Forthcoming 2008. "Metropolitan Dispersion of Mexican Immigrants in the United States, 1980 to 2000." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Light, Matthew and Ivan Light. Forthcoming 2008. "The Geographic Expansion of Mexican Immigration in the United States and Its Implications for Local Law Enforcement." Law Enforcement Executive FORUM 8 (January).
Orrenius, Pia and Madeline Zavodny. 2007. "The Effect of Minimum Wages on Immigrants." Unpublished paper, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.


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A Kentucky statute permits service of process in forcible entry or detainer actions to be made by posting a summons "in a conspicuous place on the premises," if the defendant or a member of the defendant's family over 16 years of age cannot be found on the premises. Service of process under this statute was made on appellee tenants in a public housing project by posting a summons on the door of each of their apartments. Appellees claim that they never saw the summonses and did not know of the eviction proceedings until they were served with writs of possession, executed after default judgments had been entered against them and their opportunity for appeal had lapsed. They then filed a class action in Federal District Court against appellant public officials, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and alleging that the notice procedures employed violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment for appellants, holding that such notice procedures did not deny due process. The Court of Appeals reversed.
In failing to afford appellees adequate notice of the proceedings against them before issuing final orders of eviction, the State deprived them of property without due process of law required by the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 449-456.
BRENNAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BURGER, C. J., and REHNQUIST, J., joined, post, p. 456.
William L. Hoge III argued the cause and filed a brief for appellants.
Robert Frederick Smith argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Barry L. Master. *
[ Footnote * ] Lynn E. Cunningham filed a brief for the Antioch School of Law et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
David M. Madway filed a brief for the National Housing Law Project as amicus curiae.
JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
A Kentucky statute provides that in forcible entry or detainer actions, service of process may be made under certain circumstances by posting a summons on the door of a tenant's apartment. The question presented is whether this statute, as applied to tenants in a public housing project, fails to afford those tenants the notice of proceedings initiated against them required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [456 U.S. 444, 446]
Appellees Linnie Lindsey, Barbara Hodgens, and Pamela Ray are tenants in a Louisville, Ky., housing project. Appellants are the Sheriff of Jefferson County, Ky., and certain unnamed Deputy Sheriffs charged with responsibility for serving process in forcible entry and detainer actions. In 1975, the Housing Authority of Louisville initiated detainer actions against each of appellees, seeking repossession of their apartments. Service of process was made pursuant to Ky. Rev. Stat. 454.030 (1975), which states:
Thus without recourse in the state courts, appellees filed this suit as a class action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. 1983. They claimed that the notice procedure employed as a predicate to these eviction proceedings did not satisfy the minimum standards of constitutionally adequate notice described in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950), and that the Commonwealth of Kentucky had thus failed to afford them the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Named as defendants were the Housing Authority of Louisville, several public officials charged with responsibility over particular Louisville public housing projects, Joseph Greene, the Jefferson County Sheriff, and certain known and unknown Deputy Sheriffs.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court granted judgment for appellants. In an unreported opinion, the court noted that some 70 years earlier, in Weber v. Grand Lodge of Kentucky, F. & A. M., 169 F. 522 (1909), the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had held that constructive notice by posting on the door of a building, pursuant to the predecessor statute to 454.030, provided an adequate constitutional basis upon which to commence an eviction action, on the ground that it was reasonable for the State to presume that a notice posted on the door of the building in dispute would give the tenant actual notice in time to contest the action. Although the District Court recognized that "conditions have changed since the decision in Weber . . . and . . . that there is undisputed testimony in this case that notices posted on the apartment doors of tenants are often removed by other tenants," App. 41-42, the court nevertheless concluded that the procedures employed did not deny due [456 U.S. 444, 448] process in light of the fact "that posting only comes into play after the officer directed to serve notice cannot find the defendant on the premises," id., at 42.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment in favor of appellants and remanded the case for further proceedings. 649 F.2d 425 (1981). Acknowledging that its decision in Weber directed a contrary result, the Court of Appeals examined the doctrinal basis of that decision, and concluded that it rested in part on distinctions between actions in rem and actions in personam that had been drawn in cases such as Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714 (1878); Huling v. Kaw Valley Railway & Improvement Co., 130 U.S. 559 (1889); Arndt v. Griggs, 134 U.S. 316 (1890); Ballard v. Hunter, 204 U.S. 241 (1907); and Longyear v. Toolan, 209 U.S. 414 (1908), and that had been substantially undercut by intervening decisions of this Court. In overruling Weber, the Court of Appeals cited International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), Mullane, supra, and Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186 (1977), as cases calling for a more realistic appraisal of the adequacy of process provided by the State. Turning to the circumstances of this case and the procedures contemplated by 454.030, the Court of Appeals noted that while there may have been "a time when posting provided a surer means of giving notice than did mailing, [t]hat time has passed. The uncontradicted testimony by process servers themselves that posted summonses are not infrequently removed by persons other than those served constitutes effective confirmation of the conclusion that notice by posting `is not reasonably calculated to reach those who could easily be informed by other means at hand,'" 649 F.2d, at 428, quoting Mullane, supra, at 319. 2 The court held, therefore, that the notice provided [456 U.S. 444, 449] pursuant to 454.030 was constitutionally deficient. We noted probable jurisdiction, 454 U.S. 938 (1981), and now affirm.
Appellants argue that because a forcible entry and detainer action is an action in rem, notice by posting is ipso facto constitutionally adequate. Appellees concede that posting has traditionally been deemed appropriate for in rem proceedings, but argue that detainer actions can now encompass more than the simple issue of the tenant's continued right to possession, and that they therefore require the more exacting forms of notice customarily provided for proceedings in personam. Appellants counter by conceding that if the particular detainer proceeding was one in which the landlord sought to recover past due rent, personal service would be required by Kentucky law, but argue that such claims are unusual in such proceedings, and that in the case before us the landlord claimed only a right to recover possession. Tr. of Oral Arg. 19-21.
As in Mullane, we decline to resolve the constitutional question based upon the determination whether the particular action is more properly characterized as one in rem or in personam. 339 U.S., at 312 . See Shaffer v. Heitner, supra, at 206. That is not to say that the nature of the action has no bearing on a constitutional assessment of the reasonableness of the procedures employed. The character of the action reflects the extent to which the court purports to extend its power, and thus may roughly describe the scope of potential adverse consequences to the person claiming a right to more effective notice. But "`[a]ll proceedings, like all rights, are really against persons.' " 3 In this case, appellees [456 U.S. 444, 451] have been deprived of a significant interest in property: indeed, of the right to continued residence in their homes. 4 In light of this deprivation, it will not suffice to recite that because the action is in rem, it is only necessary to serve notice "upon the thing itself." 5 The sufficiency of notice must be tested with reference to its ability to inform people of the pendency of proceedings that affect their interests. In arriving at the constitutional assessment, we look to the realities of the case before us: In determining the constitutionality of a procedure established by the State to provide notice in a particular class of cases, "its effect must be judged in the light of its practical application to the affairs of men as they are ordinarily conducted." North Laramie Land Co. v. Hoffman, 268 U.S. 276, 283 (1925).
It is, of course, reasonable to assume that a property owner will maintain superintendence of his property, and to presume that actions physically disturbing his holdings will come to his attention. See Mullane, supra, at 316. 6 The [456 U.S. 444, 452] frequent restatement of this rule impresses upon the property owner the fact that a failure to maintain watch over his property may have significant legal consequences for him, providing a spur to his attentiveness, and a consequent reinforcement to the empirical foundation of the principle. Upon this understanding, a State may in turn conclude that in most cases, the secure posting of a notice on the property of a person is likely to offer that property owner sufficient warning of the pendency of proceedings possibly affecting his interests.
The empirical basis of the presumption that notice posted upon property is adequate to alert the owner or occupant of property of the pendency of legal proceedings would appear to make the presumption particularly well founded where notice is posted at a residence. With respect to claims affecting the continued possession of that residence, the application of this presumption seems particularly apt: If the tenant has a continuing interest in maintaining possession of the property for his use and occupancy, he might reasonably be expected to frequent the premises; if he no longer occupies the premises, then the injury that might result from his not having received actual notice as a consequence of the posted notice is reduced. Short of providing personal service, then, posting notice on the door of a person's home would, in many [456 U.S. 444, 453] or perhaps most instances, constitute not only a constitutionally acceptable means of service, but indeed a singularly appropriate and effective way of ensuring that a person who cannot conveniently be served personally is actually apprised of proceedings against him.
But whatever the efficacy of posting in many cases, it is clear that, in the circumstances of this case, merely posting notice on an apartment door does not satisfy minimum standards of due process. In a significant number of instances, reliance on posting pursuant to the provisions of 454.030 results in a failure to provide actual notice to the tenant concerned. Indeed, appellees claim to have suffered precisely such a failure of actual notice. As the process servers were well aware, notices posted on apartment doors in the area where these tenants lived were "not infrequently" removed by children or other tenants before they could have their intended effect. 7 Under these conditions, notice by [456 U.S. 444, 454] posting on the apartment door cannot be considered a "reliable means of acquainting interested parties of the fact that their rights are before the courts." Mullane, 339 U.S., at 315 .
Of course, the reasonableness of the notice provided must be tested with reference to the existence of "feasible and customary" alternatives and supplements to the form of notice chosen. Ibid. In this connection, we reject appellants' characterization of the procedure contemplated by 454.030 as one in which "`posting' is used as a method of service only as a last resort." Brief for Appellants 7. To be sure, the statute requires the officer serving notice to make a visit to the tenant's home and to attempt to serve the writ personally on the tenant or some member of his family. But if no one is at home at the time of that visit, as is apparently true in a "good percentage" of cases, 8 posting follows forthwith. Neither the statute, nor the practice of the process servers, makes provision for even a second attempt at personal service, perhaps at some time of day when the tenant is more likely to be at home. The failure to effect personal service on the first visit hardly suggests that the tenant has abandoned his interest in the apartment such that mere pro forma notice might be held constitutionally adequate. Cf. Mullane, 339 U.S., at 317 -318. [456 U.S. 444, 455]
As noted by the Court of Appeals, and as we noted in Mullane, the mails provide an "efficient and inexpensive means of communication," id., at 319, upon which prudent men will ordinarily rely in the conduct of important affairs, id., at 319-320. Notice by mail in the circumstances of this case would surely go a long way toward providing the constitutionally required assurance that the State has not allowed its power to be invoked against a person who has had no opportunity to present a defense despite a continuing interest in the resolution of the controversy. 9 Particularly where the subject matter of the action also happens to be the mailing address of the defendant, and where personal service is ineffectual, notice by mail may reasonably be relied upon to provide interested persons with actual notice of judicial proceedings. We need not go so far as to insist that in order to "dispense with personal service the substitute that is most likely to reach the defendant is the least that ought to be required," McDonald v. Mabee, 243 U.S., at 92 , in order to recognize that where an inexpensive and efficient mechanism such as mail service is available to enhance the reliability of an otherwise unreliable notice procedure, the State's continued exclusive reliance on an ineffective means of service is not notice "reasonably calculated to reach those who could [456 U.S. 444, 456] easily be informed by other means at hand." Mullane, supra, at 319. 10
We conclude that in failing to afford appellees adequate notice of the proceedings against them before issuing final orders of eviction, the State has deprived them of property without the due process of law required by the Fourteenth Amendment. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
[ Footnote 2 ] The Court of Appeals concluded that "[r]equiring Kentucky to provide notice by mail when personal service proves infeasible will not be overly burdensome. The cost will be minimal, and the state's conceded interest [456 U.S. 444, 449] in providing a summary procedure for settlement of landlord-tenant disputes will not be seriously circumscribed." 649 F.2d, at 428. The court then noted with approval the provisions of the New York counterpart of 454.030, which provides that when notice is served by posting, a copy of the petition must be sent by registered or certified mail within a day of the posting. Ibid., citing Velazquez v. Thompson, 451 F.2d 202, 205 (CA2 1971).
[ Footnote 3 ] Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 207 , n. 22 (1977), quoting Tyler v. Court of Registration, 175 Mass. 71, 76, 55 N. E. 812, 814 (Holmes, C. J.), writ of error dism'd, 179 U.S. 405 (1900).
[ Footnote 4 ] The dissent directs our attention to the "nature and purpose," of Kentucky's forcible entry and detainer action. Post, at 457. Such proceedings are designed to offer an expeditious means of determining who is entitled to retain possession of an apartment. But that hardly explains why we may dispense with the constitutional requirement of adequate notice. After all, detainer proceedings, while in some sense "summary," are proceedings in which issues of fact and law are to be resolved, and important interests in property determined. We can agree with the dissent's observation that the "means chosen for making service of process . . . must be prompt and certain." Ibid. But it is difficult to see how, from the perspective of the landlord, any of the likely supplements to the form of service currently provided under 454.030 will render the procedure markedly less prompt or certain. More significantly, from the perspective of the tenant, it is difficult to see how a means of serving process that fails to afford actual notice in a "not insubstantial" number of cases can be deemed either prompt or certain.
[ Footnote 5 ] The Mary, 9 Cranch 126, 144 (1815).
[ Footnote 6 ] As we noted in Mullane:
[ Footnote 7 ] The depositions before the District Court included the following statements by the process servers:
[ Footnote 8 ] Id., at 76 (deposition of process server).
[ Footnote 9 ] The dissent apparently wishes to dispute the District Court's finding that "notices posted on apartment doors are often removed," and further questions our reliance on the observation in Mullane that the mails are a reliable means of communication - in light of its own observation that "unattended mailboxes are subject to plunder." Post, at 460. The dissent misconstrues the constitutional standard. In light of the findings of the courts below, we hold only that posted notice pursuant to 454.030 is constitutionally inadequate. It is not our responsibility to prescribe the form of service that the Commonwealth should adopt. But even conceding that process served by mail is far from the ideal means of providing the notice the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires, we have no hesitation in concluding that posted service accompanied by mail service, is constitutionally preferable to posted service alone.
[ Footnote 10 ] "Where the names and post-office addresses of those affected by a proceeding are at hand, the reasons disappear for resort to means less likely than the mails to apprise them of its pendency." 339 U.S., at 318 . See Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U.S. 208, 213 (1962).
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE REHNQUIST join, dissenting.
Today, the Court holds that the Constitution prefers the use of the Postal Service to posted notice. The Court reaches this conclusion despite the total absence of any evidence in the record regarding the speed and reliability of the mails. The sole ground for the Court's result is the scant and conflicting testimony of a handful of process servers in Kentucky. On this flimsy basis, the Court confidently overturns the work of the Kentucky Legislature and, by implication, that of at least 10 other States. I must respectfully dissent.
At a minimum, the Fourteenth Amendment requires "notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action." Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314 (1950). The question before the Court is whether the notice provided by Kentucky's statute meets this standard. In answering that question, the first "circumstances" [456 U.S. 444, 457] to be considered are the nature and purpose of the action for which notice is required.
Kentucky's forcible entry and detainer action is a summary proceeding for quickly determining whether or not a landlord has the right to immediate possession of leased premises and, if so, for enabling the landlord speedily to obtain the property from the person in wrongful possession. Ky. Rev. Stat. 383.200, 383.210 (1972). As this Court has recognized, such circumstances call for special procedures:
The Kentucky statute meets this need. It directs the process server to attempt personal service on the tenant at his residence. Ky. Rev. Stat. 454.030 (1975). If the process server cannot find the tenant on the premises, the statute directs the server to explain and leave a copy of the notice [456 U.S. 444, 458] with a family member over the age of 16. Ibid. If both of these attempts fail, Kentucky authorizes the server, as a last resort, to post a copy of the notice in a conspicuous place on the premises. Ibid.
As the Court recognizes, notice procedures like Kentucky's, though "less rigorous" than mandatory personal service, nonetheless "have enjoyed substantial acceptance throughout our legal history." Ante, at 449. The weight of historical precedent is reinforced by the collective wisdom of the legislatures of the at least 11 States authorizing notice in summary eviction proceedings solely by posting or by leaving the notice at the tenant's residence. 1 The Court itself acknowledges that "posting notice on the door of a person's home would, in many or perhaps most instances, constitute . . . a singularly appropriate and effective way of ensuring that a person who cannot conveniently be served personally is actually apprised of proceedings against him." Ante, at 452-453.
The Court nonetheless rejects these established procedures as unconstitutional, though it does not cite a single case, other than the decision below, supporting its position that notice by posting is constitutionally inadequate in summary eviction proceedings. Instead, the Court relies solely on the deposition testimony of a few Kentucky process servers.
The testimony is hardly compelling. For example, one process server, Mr. S. Carter Bacon, reported having seen children in the Village West housing development pull down posted writs "probably a couple of times." App. 80; App. in No. 79-3477 (CA6), p. 103. The Court neglects to mention, [456 U.S. 444, 459] however, that another process server, Mr. Gilbert Brutscher, cast doubt on Mr. Bacon's testimony by stating:
Plainly, such conflicting testimony falls well short of what this Court should require before rushing to scrap Kentucky's considered legislative judgment that, as a last resort, posted notice is an appropriate form of service of process for forcible entry and detainer actions.
The Court, however, holds that notice via the mails is so far superior to posted notice that the difference is of constitutional dimension. 2 How the Court reaches this judgment remains [456 U.S. 444, 460] a mystery, especially since the Court is unable, on the present record, to evaluate the risks that notice mailed to public housing projects might fail due to loss, misdelivery, lengthy delay, or theft. Furthermore, the advantages of the mails over posting, if any, are far from obvious. It is no secret, after all, that unattended mailboxes are subject to plunder by thieves. Moreover, unlike the use of the mails, posting notice at least gives assurance that the notice has gotten as far as the tenant's door.
In sum, the Court has chosen to overturn Kentucky's procedures on the basis of a wholly inadequate record. In so doing, the Court apparently indulges a presumption that the state legislation challenged here is unconstitutional until proven otherwise. Regrettably, the Court seems to forget that we have long since discarded the concept that "due process authorizes courts to hold laws unconstitutional when they believe the legislature has acted unwisely." Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.S. 726, 730 (1963). I respectfully dissent.
[ Footnote 1 ] See Ala. Code 6-6-332, 35-9-82 (1975); Colo. Rev. Stat. 13-40-112 (1973); Fla. Stat. 48.183 (1979); Kan. Stat. Ann. 61-1805 (1976); Ky. Rev. Stat. 454.030 (1975); La. Code Civ. Proc. Ann., Art. 4703 (West 1961); Miss. Code Ann. 89-7-33 (1972); Neb. Rev. Stat. 25-508 (1979); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. 510:2, 540:5 (Supp. 1979); N.C. Gen. Stat. 42-29 (1976); W. Va. Code 56-2-1 (1966), W. Va. Rule Civ. Proc. 4(d)(1) (1982).
[ Footnote 2 ] The Court gives lipservice to the principle that "[i]t is not our responsibility to prescribe the form of service that [Kentucky] should adopt," ante, at 455, n. 9, but then goes on to do just that, first by explaining to the state legislature that, unlike notice by posting, notice by mail "would surely go a long way toward" satisfying the Court, ante, at 455, and then by remarking that, in the Court's view, the combination of posted service and mail service would be "constitutionally preferable" to posted service alone, ante, at 455, n. 9. [456 U.S. 444, 461]
A free source of state and federal court opinions, state laws, and the United States Code. For more information about the legal concepts addressed by these cases and statutes visit FindLaw's Learn About the Law.
Citation: 456 U.S. 444
Docket No: No. 81-341
Argued: February 23, 1982
Decided: May 17, 1982
Court: United States Supreme Court
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
These archives of natural sounds include a documentary database on the species and a specific database for soundscapes. All are documented (species identity, locality, time of the day, temperature, behavioral context) and related, as far as possible, to recorded specimens / vouchers preserved in the collections of the MNHN.
The aim of the Soundlibrary database is make available to the widest possible audience, novice or warned, researcher or private citizen, a set of documented natural sounds for the identification and monitoring of singing animals, whether birds, frogs, mammals, fish or insects. Soundscape recordings attest the presence and activity of several species living together at a given time and place.
From a scientific point of view, capturing acoustic signals allows to build a rich knowledge base for the study of biodiversity; this base is very useful in many scientific domains. The knowledge and management of biodiversity in fact necessitate the analysis of the characters of the species on the one hand, and the study of the relationships species have with each other and with their environment on the other. The acoustic productions of each species can be used at multiple levels in these studies, whether to identify species (taxonomy, associated with morphological and molecular characters), study their relationships (phylogeny), or understand the interactions between individuals of the same species, or between species co-occuring in the same habitat (etho-ecology).
The Soundlibrary is thus a tool for the knowledge and management of biodiversity, adapted to a large panel of users.
Sounds are recorded, documented and validated by researchers from the MNHN or other research institutes, and by well-trained naturalist bioacousticians.
How to contribute and use
In order to increase knowledge on biodiversity and bioacoustics, the Soundlibrary of the MNHN welcomes inputs from audio naturalists and researchers. However, in order to keep a high scientific value, only good quality recordings documented for species identity, place and time of recording, and when necessary ambient temperature, are included in the database.
For any information about how to use MNHN Soundlibrary or to contribute to its development, please contact the database administrator at : email@example.com
Scientific curation
Laure Desutter (MNHN)
Tony Robillard (MNHN)
Jérome Sueur (MNHN)
Frédéric Guilbert (MNHN)
Supervising committee
Fernand Deroussen (Field recorder)
Olivier Adam (Sorbone-Université)
Adeline Soulier-Perkins (MNHN)
Henri CAP (Muséum Toulouse)
Frédéric Jiguet (MNHN)
Eric Parmentier (University of Liège)
Maria Dolores Garcia (University of Madrid)
Jean-François Julien (MNHN)
Jean Joachim (INRA Toulouse)
Création site web
Philipe Loret (MNHN)


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VIZ Media Debuts TURNING POINT: 1997-2008, A New Memoir For Legendary Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) March 26, 2014 -- VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest distributor and licensor of anime and manga in North America, has announced the release of TURNING POINT: 1997-2008, an insightful collection of essays, interviews, memoirs, and illustrations from legendary animation director Hayao Miyazaki. The new title covers the critical stage in the legendary director's career when his animated films such as Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, and Ponyo began to garner a significant international audience. TURNING POINT: 1997-2008 will debut as a hardcover edition on April 8th and will carry an MSRP of $29.99 U.S. / $34.99 CAN.
TURNING POINT: 1997-2008 is the companion second volume to the earlier Miyazaki chronicle, STARTING POINT: 1979-1996, which was originally published by VIZ Media in 2009. This volume examined the first part of Miyazaki's career, during which he rose from humble beginnings to create the seminal animated features Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind, Castle In The Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Porco Rosso, as well as his launch of Studio Ghibli. A fitting introduction is offered by John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar and Walt Disney. VIZ Media will release STARTING POINT: 1979-1996 in a new paperback edition on April 8th under the Studio Ghibli Library imprint with an MSRP of $16.99 U.S. / $19.99 CAN.
TURNING POINT: 1997-2008 follows Hayao Miyazaki as his grand vision continued to mature, cinema-lovers worldwide discovered and embraced his creations, and prominent film critics such as Roger Ebert delivered tremendous acclaim for the director's films. In his legendary career, these crucial years represent the turning point. In the mid-1990s, Miyazaki moved from success to success as his work found a fervent audience outside of Japan. His animated films of the era, including Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, and Ponyo, were internationally lauded, and Miyazaki won an Academy Award® in 2003 for his film, Spirited Away, which was a commercial and critical hit.
"These two memoirs focused on Hayao Miyazaki are extremely insightful and give tribute to the power of animation as an art form," says Masumi Washington, Senior Editorial Director. "Both STARTING POINT and TURNING POINT offer collections of essays, interviews, and memoirs that go back to the roots of Miyazaki's childhood, the founding of Studio Ghibli and continues with essays and discussions focusing on some of his most popular films, including Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away. A captivating must-read for any anime aficionado or fan of the entrepreneurial spirit, these new books are wonderful tributes to a true visionary's unending dedication and skill as a master storyteller."
Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's most beloved animation directors. His first feature, The Castle of Cagliostro, was released in 1979. His film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, based on his own manga, was released in 1984. In 1985 Miyazaki cofounded Studio Ghibli, through which he directed the box-office smashes Princess Mononoke (1997) and Spirited Away (2001), which won the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival and the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature Film in 2003. Howl's Moving Castle (2004) received the Osella Award for technical achievement at the 2004 Venice International Film Festival. In 2005 VIFF awarded Miyazaki the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement. His other acclaimed films include My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Ponyo. Miyazaki's essays, interviews, and memoirs have been collected in Starting Point: 1979-1996 and Turning Point: 1997-2008. His final film, The Wind Rises, was nominated for both a Golden Globe and Academy Award®.
VIZ Media will also be releasing a stunning full-color hardcover edition, THE ART OF THE WIND RISES, based on Hayao Miyazaki's latest and final feature film, on April 8th.
For more information on a variety of Hayao Miyazaki titles published by VIZ Media, please visit http://www.VIZ.com.
About VIZ Media, LLC
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, VIZ Media distributes, markets and licenses the best anime and manga titles direct from Japan. Owned by three of Japan's largest manga and animation companies, Shueisha Inc., Shogakukan Inc., and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, Co., Ltd., VIZ Media has the most extensive library of anime and manga for English speaking audiences in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and South Africa. With its popular digital manga anthology WEEKLY SHONEN JUMP and blockbuster properties like NARUTO, BLEACH and INUYASHA, VIZ Media offers cutting-edge action, romance and family friendly properties for anime, manga, science fiction and fantasy fans of all ages. VIZ Media properties are available as graphic novels, DVDs, animated television series, feature films, downloadable and streaming video and a variety of consumer products.
Elizabeth Ellis, VIZ Media, LLC, http://www.viz.com, +1 (415) 546-7073 Ext: 185, [email protected]


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Snake, A Stepbrother Romance by Emilia Beaumont
Publication Date: July 11, 2015
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Synopsis: Cheating, f*cking, lying Snake!
I thought he was different than all the rest.
My stepbrother, Devan was everything that I longed for in a man: loyal, protective, and strong. After being burned so many times by cheating scumbags, you can understand why. He's the perfect guy; the standard I hold other men up to. If only I could have a carbon copy of him… tattoos and all.
But then he kissed me. And no matter how much I want him to be mine, I see him for what he really is.
Another snake that can't keep it in his pants.
He's married for f*cks sake!
Their marriage is in trouble, but that's no excuse, and it just happens to be one of the reasons why I'm living with the couple…
I've made a deal with the devil and I'm to be their surrogate.
Shit. Why did he have to go and complicate our lives?
Because now I can't stop thinking about him and the baby I promised to give him.
About Emilia Beaumont
#1 Bestselling Amazon author in Contemporary British Fiction!
Emilia Beaumont is a thirty-something woman, living in Europe, who loves writing steamy and scorching hot romance.
Find out more or join Emilia on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoremiliabeaumont


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Country: United States
History: 1985 – 1994
Status: Inactive
Style: Thrash Metal
Although they only released one album, the career of this metal band from Westchester, New York, lasted nearly ten years.
The guitarists Rena Sands and Marlene Apuzzo met in 1985 to form the nucleus of Meanstreak, which would be complemented by Bettina France at the micro, Lisa Diane Pace on bass and Keyser on drums, replacing a drummer that was just passing through.
They Initially started in a Vixen-style, but changed to a more thrasher actitude, both musically and in terms of aesthetics.
After performing in several gigs, they were called to participate in the compilation "L'Amour Rocks" with the song "Lost Stranger" along with bands that, as them, had begun their careers at the club "L 'Amour" in Brooklyn.
Mercenary Records, responsible for this compilation, ended recruiting the band group to release its first album in 1988, "Roadkill". It was recorded in nine days, with the production of ex-Raven Rob 'Wack' Hunter.
The thrashy paths that Meanstrek seemed to head (which had already shown off in the final cut "The Congregation") were not liked by Diane, who preferred a more commercial music. So she left the formation to let Devon Yael to come in, who dominated the double bass drum.
The album received good reviews in the specialized press, and thanks to it Meanstreak shared the stage with Flotsam and Jetsam, Motörhead, Manowar, Nuclear Assault, MOD, Anthrax and Overkill.
The album did not receive sufficient promotion so Meanstreak decided to cut with Mercenary and his record label in Europe, Music For Nations.
When the tour of "Roadkill" finished, and still without a contract, they began recording new material. Songs such as "Giant Speaks" and "The Other Side," more thrashers than his previous album, never saw the light. Neither the contact with Debbie Abono, Violence and Forbidden band manager, succeeded to revive a band that gradually disappeared from a saturated scene.
But when it seemed that everything was over, Meanstreak came again to the fore in 1993 with a four track demo produced by Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, husband of Marlene Apuzzo, who changed from guitar to bass following Lisa's departure.
The demo was called "The Dark Gift" , and was a big change in the sound of Meanstreak which disappointed the fans who expected something more furious, faster, thrashy. What they found was a compendium of rock and ballads, as Bettina was tired to screaming and wanted to "mature musically." This shift towards almost the grunge sound can also be understood as an attempt to get a record deal.
Marlene is not only the only one married to a Dream Theater musician. Rena is married to John Petrucci and Lisa toJohn Myung. This relationship led Meanstreak to support Dream Theater three times in the early 90s.
His last performance was on TV, in a program called "Girl's Night Out." Yael continues playing in My Ruin.
Bettina France – Vocals
Marlene Apuzzo – Guitar
Rena Sands – Guitar
Lisa Pace – Bass
Yael Devan – Drums
former musicians:
Diane Keyser – Drums
Irene – Bass
Zoe – Drums
Sylvia – Keyboards
Jennifer – Bass
Charisse – Bass
1988, "Roadkill" (LP)
1989, "The Other Side" (Demo)
1992, "The Dark Gift" (Demo)
Related links:


text:
Dan's Garlic Bread
adapted from Dan Lepard, Exceptional Breads, by Dan Lepard
Dan has reworked the recipe to include a longer rise, less yeast, and less sugar.
for the pre-ferment
200ml water, at about 35C - 38C (95F - 101F)
1 tsp fast acting yeast 200g strong white bakers flour
for the dough
225ml water at 20C (68F) 10g sea salt
325g strong white bakers flour 75ml extra virgin olive oil
for the garlic filling
3 heads garlic, separated
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
50ml water
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 spring fresh rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
for the pre-ferment
To easily get the temperature of the water roughly correct measure 100ml of boiling water and add 200ml cold water, then measure the amount you need from this. Stir in the yeast then, when dissolved, stir in the flour until evenly combined.
Leave the mixture covered at about 20C - 22C (warmish room temperature) for 2 hours, stirring the ferment once after an hour to bring the yeast in contact with new starch to ferment.
for the garlic filling
Break the heads of garlic into cloves and place in a saucepan, cover with boiling water from the kettle and simmer for 3 - 4 minutes.
Then strain the garlic from the water, cover the cloves with cold water to cool then peel the slivery skin from the garlic. It's surprising how few cloves you get after peeling so don't be alarmed if "3 heads of garlic" sound like way too much.
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan then place the add the cloves to it and cook until they are lightly brown (not burnt) on the outside. If you burn the garlic the flavour is nasty and you will have to start again, or serve it to your friends with a straight face, so watch them carefully.
Measure the balsamic and the water then add this to the pan with the sugar, salt, pepper and rosemary. Simmer for 5 minutes until the liquid has reduced to a thick caramel.
Scrape into a bowl and leave to cool. The garlic cloves should be tender when pierced with a knife.
back to the dough:
After 2 hours the pre-ferment should have doubled and look bubbly on the surface. Measure the water into a bowl and tip the pre-ferment into it. Break it up with your fingers until only small thread-like bits remain (this is the elastic gluten you can feel in your fingers)
Add the flour and salt then stir the mixture together with your hands. It will feel very sticky and elastic. Scrape any remaining dough from your hands, cover the bowl and leave for 10 minutes so that the flour has time to absorb moisture before being kneaded. Be sure to scrape around the bowl to make sure all of the flour is incorporated into the dough.
Pour 2 tbsp olive oil onto the surface of the dough and smooth it over the surface with your hands. Now rub a little oil on your hands and start to tuck your fingers down the side of the dough, then pull the dough upward stretching it out.
Rotate the bowl as you do this, so that all of the dough gets pulled and stretched. You'll find that the dough starts to feel and look smoother. Leave the dough in a ball, cover and leave for 10 minutes.
Repeat the pulling and stretching of the dough, for no more than about 10 - 12 seconds. You may find that an oiling piece of dough breaks through the upper surface. This isn't a bad thing, but it is a sing to stop working the dough. Cover the bowl again and leave for a further 10 minutes.
This time oil a piece of the worksurface about 30 cm in diameter. Oil your hands, pick the dough out of the bowl, place it on the oiled surface and knead it gently for 10 - 15 seconds. Return the dough to the bowl, cover and leave for 30 minutes.
Uncover the dough, oil the worksurface once more and flip the dough out onto it.
Stretch the dough out into a rectangle, then fold the right hand side in by a third.
Then fold the in by thirds again so that your left with a square dough parcel. Place this back in the bowl, cover and leave for 30 minutes.
Lightly oil the worksurface again and stretch the dough out to cover an area roughly 30cm x 20cm. Dot the garlic over the 2/3rds of the surface and then fold the bare piece of dough over a third of the garlic-covered dough.
Then roll this fold of dough over so that the remaining garlic-covered piece is covered by dough. Then fold this piece of dough in by a third...then in by a third again. Finally place the folded dough back in the bowl, cover and leave for 30 minutes.
Wipe the oil off the worksurface and lightly dust it with flour. Pin the dough out again as above and fold it in by thirds each way. Replace it in the bowl, cover and leave for a further 30 minutes.
Pin the dough out again fold it in by thirds each way again as shown. Leave the dough for 10 minutes while you prepare the tray the bread will rise on.
Cover a large dinner tray with a tea-towel. Lightly dust it with white flour, then cut the dough into thirds with a serrated knife.
Place the dough cut side upward on the tray then pinch the fabric between each so that they stay separated.
Preheat Oven and Prepare Baking Sheet/Stone
Cover and leave for 45 minutes while you heat the oven to 200C (same for fan assisted)/390F/gas mark 5-6. I put a large unglazed terracotta tile in the oven and shovel the dough directly onto it with the back of a small cookie tray. It gives a much better finish and perhaps the bread is slightly crisper, but the bread will still be good placed on a tray just before baking. I also put a small tray of water in the bottom of the oven so that the heat is a little moist, which will help the bread to rise and colour.
Lightly dust the back of a cookie tray (if you have a stone in the oven) or the surface of a baking tray with semolina or flour. Carefully pick the dough up off the cloth, scooping it in from end to end with your finger then quickly lift it clear of the cloth and onto the tray.
Either shovel the dough onto the hot stone, or place the baking tray in the oven, shut the door quickly and bake for 20 - 30 minutes until the loaves are a good rich golden brown


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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Good Times for Pimps
Exclusive to STR
Though an avid film buff, I stopped giving any semblance of a damn about the Academy Awards a few years ago. The times I would care to watch any of it would be more out of the kind of morbid curiosity one feels when driving by the scene of an automobile accident on the interstate'you know you really shouldn't, but yet you just can't help but slow down and gawk. This is my view of American popular culture generally these days: One big massive pile-up of wreckage that I can't help but just gawk at every so often in spite of myself, just to take in the sheer spectacle of flames, gore, twisted metal and crash victims suffering from massive head trauma.
This year, however, I sat through the whole Oscar telecast, miraculously stifling the urge to vomit the entire evening. Perhaps the snide remarks I kept muttering throughout helped to keep down the bile. If not for the fact that it was an occasion to have a couple of friends over that evening, whom my wife and I had not seen for quite some time and who are also big 'cinephiles,' as the pretentious artsy-fartsy types like to say, I would not have sat through a single moment of Hollywood's annual orgy of tedious self-congratulation. I was quickly reminded of all that grates on my nerves about the so-called 'Dream Factory.'
Truly one of the most laughable highlights of the evening was George Clooney's acceptance speech for the best supporting actor prize for his performance in Good Night, and Good Luck, which he also directed. Taking his cue from a joke made earlier in the evening by host Jon Stewart (who was the only saving grace of the whole broadcast) that the rest of the country perceives the West Coast filmmaking community as essentially a Sodom and Gomorrahesque abyss of drugs, easy sex and generally bizarre behavior that's out of touch with the rest of America ('I have no joke here, I just thought you should know that's what people are saying'), Clooney claimed great pride in his allegiance to that institution of pop culture we ubiquitously refer to as 'Hollywood.' After all, said Clooney, it was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that in its infinitely egalitarian and progressive wisdom saw fit to bestow the best supporting actress award upon Hattie McDaniel in 1940. Hattie McDaniel was black, you see, and her being granted one of those little golden statues for her portrayal of an antebellum house slave in Gone With the Wind was fine moral instruction for the rest of the country at that time, which Clooney seems to believe was uniformly dominated by vicious racists who everywhere begrudged black people front row seats at movie theaters. So if Hollywood is 'out of touch' with the rest of America, said Clooney, then so be it. Hey, someone's gotta teach you bigoted ignoramuses the many errors of your ways!
I suspect it was at that moment that Hattie McDaniel literally spun in her grave as a result of the shock upon learning that she was awarded her Oscar not due to the quality of her performance and acting talent, but because she was chosen as an unwitting pawn in the Hollywood establishment's agitprop production on 'racial equality.' Most certainly, the sight of a black woman named 'Mammy' on the silver screen running about a gothic Southern plantation mansion wearing a do-rag and screaming 'I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies!' taught valuable lessons for Americans everywhere on the evils of racism, particularly for any black patrons sitting in the backs of movie theaters [correction].
The most entertaining moment of the evening, however, had to be the presentation of the award for 'best song' in a film, and let me emphasize the words best and song. The award was for best song, and the wise and noble members of the Academy decided that the best song used in a film was'drum roll, please!'It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp, a hip-hop number from the film Hustle & Flow. Prior to the announcement of the award, Three 6 Mafia, the group that had recorded it, performed their little ditty live on stage complete with dancers, most of them black and Latino, playing the roles of scantily dressed prostitutes and cartoonish looking pimps, bemoaning the hard times upon which pimps have fallen. Silly me, I wasn't even aware of the plight of the American pimp, so at least I learned something new that evening. Now that I think about it, I guess these tough economic times would hit the pimps especially hard. I mean the average pimp's 'bling-bling' budget alone must be the equivalent of the economy of a small country. Who knew pimps had it so rough? Perhaps Three 6 Mafia will combine efforts with Snoop Doggy Dog to organize a 'Million Pimp March' on Washington to heighten consciousness of the historic injustices suffered by pimps down through the centuries.
Do you think George Clooney, who earlier sung the praises of the Academy's oh-so-wise progressive moral instruction on matters of race for the rest of the country, might have cringed in his seat at the spectacle of walking self-perpetuating stereotypes strutting about the stage and being rewarded for it? Judging from his Hattie McDaniel speech, I suspect the irony was utterly lost on him.
'You know what? I think it just got a little easier out here for a pimp!' joked Stewart afterward.
Indeed. Things are far from difficult for pimps, which is evidenced not only by Three 6 Mafia's Oscar victory. Everywhere one looks these days, pimp culture in fact reigns triumphant in America.
The Pimp-in-Chief can now spy on any American he personally deigns to be a threat to national security and not have to answer for it to anyone. And it just so happens that he's pimped out a $385 million Federal contract to one of his most loyal 'private sector' whores, Kellogg Brown and Root, to build cozy little camps in which to detain not only illegal immigrants threatening to compete in the American labor market, but 'potential terrorists' as well. Focus on that vague and broad word, potential. How high do you think the standard of proof would be in order to determine if someone is a 'potential' terrorist, especially when the Head Pimp alone is judge, jury and jailer? Judging from the standard of evidence held against those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, they could probably jail your grandmother as a 'potential terrorist' if she doesn't mind her Ps and Qs.
But the U.S. House of Pimps seem to think that the greatest threat to Americans is not the danger of an infinitely powerful and dictatorial Chief Pimp, but rather it's a company based in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, which has acquired a British company that has the job of managing U.S. ports. Them pimps went crazy over that one. Why, that city is a hotbed of Islamic radicalism! Two of the 9-11 hijackers were from Dubai! The Dubai banks were conduits for terrorist financing! Sort of like suspecting anyone from Chicago of being a mass murderer or serial killer because of the Richard Speck and John Wayne Gacey killings. Was the bank where Timothy McVeigh had his checking account ipso facto a tool of terrorist financing? All this sloppy reasoning was just the House of Pimps' way of saying, 'We don't want to outsource the security of our ports to any Ay-rabs!' This went over quite well with certain media whores, many of whom are of a, shall we say'neoconnish'nature, who continue to flail and flop about in their attempts to psych us all up for 'World War IV,' especially in an election year. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the latest polling data revealed a sudden surge of support for the Democrat pimps.
But Dubai Ports World said, 'Aw, f'k it!' anyway and vowed to sell its U.S. operations to an American company, basically strong-armed into the decision by them pimps Hillary Clinton and Bill Frist. And after all that the UAE pimps had done for the U.S. pimps'doing whatever the American pimps told them to do to fight the War of Terror. They learned the hard way that U.S. government pimps don't just expect total blind obedience'they also expect their whores to take a bitch-slap and squeal with delight, 'Thank you sir, may I have another?!'
Meanwhile, John 'Bonkers' Bolton, the U.S. Chief Pimp's emissary to the United Pimps of the New World Order headquarters in New York and Vice-Pimp 'Deadeye' Dick Cheney assured them pimps at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that there will be 'tangible and painful consequences' for them pimps in Iran if they stubbornly continue to not develop nuclear weapons'er, wait, I'm confused. I still haven't figured out exactly what horrible crime the Iranians have committed, whom to my knowledge haven't attacked a single country since the end of its war with Iraq, much less invaded one. But whatever the Iranians have been doing, or not doing, they're sure not going to get away with it. Besides, only the U.S. and Israeli pimps and their assorted hos get to have nukes, as I'm sure Iran will find out before year's end.
So I would say to Three 6 Mafia, 'Yo, check it! You pimps just in the wrong biz-naz, bloods!'
Where was I? Oh, right, Hollywood, the Academy Awards, etc., etc.
I recently read that while on a press junket to promote his film 16 Blocks, Bruce Willis, in a fit of frustration from being asked incessantly about his politics, declared himself 'apolitical' and said he 'hate[s] the government.' Even better, he seems to detest that sanctimonious wretch Oprah Winfrey. Now that's a movie star after my own heart.
Just about makes me want to submit myself for president of the Bruce Willis Fan Club.


text:
IDF Spring 2005 Day 1 - Gelsinger Speaks, nForce4 Intel and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on March 2, 2005 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
NVIDIA Demos nForce4 with SLI for Intel platforms
Despite rumors of it being called nForce5, NVIDIA showcased their nForce4 for Intel chipsets at IDF.
The chipset is up and running:
We didn't find out much about the chipset at NVIDIA's keynote, but we later got a full demo of the chipset and some shots of vendor boards:
We can't say too much about the chipset, but given that it's still being called a nForce4 you can pretty much guess almost all the features it will support.
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sprockkets - Thursday, March 3, 2005 - link
FDimms, the way we get around having each processor have its own memory controller but still have a lot of slots.
Of course the right time for you to enter 64 bit for the desktop is now, cause you managed to kludge it on your processors oh BFD.
Sorry Patty, but the AMD/Linux crowd didn't need to wait on the Wintel crowd for 64 bit. -
Viditor - Thursday, March 3, 2005 - link
mickyb - "How is this any different than multi CPU SMP? It isn't, except for compressing them to a smaller space"
I agree, at least for the Intel model. The AMD dual core is quite different however, in that the 2 cores are connected locally, and the MOESI protocol AMD uses allows for easy cache snooping. -
mickyb - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
#16 My statement was in context of the performance issue, not cost. The graphs imply that multi-core is the savior, when we have been experiencing what multi-cpu will do. Any graph that implies "exponential" growth for multi-core vs. single core is just a lie. I have been creating tools that analyze system performance for a while. It is far from the truth. It is still SMP. -
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
#9: "How is this any different than multi CPU SMP? It isn't, except for compressing them to a smaller space. SMP has its problems as well and the number of CPUs does not create an exponential graph like Intel is implying."
Actually, there is one major difference: one socket is sufficient. Designing motherboards with two CPU sockets increases costs a lot, and so the SMP market in the desktop space is extremely small. There are so many applications that *could* use multiple threads that don't, mostly because programmers would end up spending tons of effort in improving performance on a small percentage of systems.
Just like the move to 64-bits will have more benefits in the future rather than in the short term, multi-core is looking to the future rather than the present. Software will have to be coded properly, but once that is done, multi-core will start to give us a lot of improvements in performance. Now that programmers have an incentive to support threading (probably almost all CPUs sold by late 2007 are going to be SMP), they will spend the time. -
Viditor - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
Cygni - "Im also wondering whether Intel will allow the Nforce4 to use the 1066fsb?"
Good question...
I would ASSUME that the answer to this is yes..."In for a penny, in for a pound" as they say. Considering all the trouble Intel has been having with 3rd party developers lately, I would assume that they will support Nvidia completely (if not, why support them at all?). -
Cygni - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
I thought the Pressler info was pretty shocking too, Viditor... especially considering its slated to replace the single die PD's. Wouldnt two phsyical cores over FSB be far slower? Really strange.
Im also wondering whether Intel will allow the Nforce4 to use the 1066fsb? -
johnsonx - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
We all said it, and I think recent events and comments at IDF prove it beyond a reasonable doubt: Intel and Microsoft were in cahoots on XP 64-bit all along. XP x64 wasn't ever going to be released before Intel had 64-bit capable P4's and even Celerons ready to go.
Viditor - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
I hadn't realised how very different Intel's dual-core is to AMD's until now...
Just this one line:
"The two cores in Pressler are totally independent, meaning that they must communicate with each other over the external front side bus and not over any internal bus"
That will be a HUGE latency problem when compared to AMD's dual-core! It takes 1 clock for AMD to communicate from one core to another because of Direct Connect (the on-die "switcher" between cores), I would guess that Intel will require at least 3-5 clocks (based on it taking 6-8 clocks for their SMP)... -
skiboysteve - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
even if intel did implement x86-64 at the "right time" at the launch of Win64, how is this the right time? Anyone who wants to use Win64 that intel now harks as the future, will have to buy a new chip, while A64 users already have everything they needed.
I dont even have an athlon64 but its just silly to say you are at the forefront of some new technology (64bit) when everyone has to go buy a new CPU to use it, amd had it right by equiping users before the "right time" so they were prepared.
Anyway. Yeah FBDIMMs look tight, so does rambus, the DDRx shit is so lame. by the time they get DDR2 up and running they find 100 ways to do it better and no one wants DDR2 anymore, its stupid.
and BTX is a joke -
sphinx - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link
I agree with mickyb. I am more interested in the FBDIMM than NF4 for Intel and dual cores.


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Friday, September 24, 2010
Wishes and Book Characters
So tomorrow, my wish comes true. I'm on a panel called "First Crop: Planting an Idea, Harvesting a Book" with YA author Jennifer R Hubbard (The Secret Year) and PB author Jeannine Norris (Tonight, You Are My Baby). Btw, we're part of a really fun group of authors/illustrators called the KidLit Authors Club
It's time for true confessions. I've never been to Philadelphia. Why, yes, I do live closer to that city than I do to any other city in the USA. As a long time New Yorker I still have that mentality that "the city" means NYC. In my defense, I have friends and family in the NYC area. (It's a paltry defense, but it's all I have)
Yeah. I'm jumping up and down again. I'm really excited about the weekend.
But here's the other thing. My book characters in my w.i.p. have decided to start talking to me. Finally!! And I'm experiencing that wonderful feeling of being torn between real life and my writing life.
It happens when I'm in the middle of a story. No matter what's going on in my real life, I find myself pulled into another world.
When you write, how do you leave your characters behind?
It's hard for me. Even when I'm having a dream-come-true moment, I can't let them go. Besides thinking about what they'd do in their own world, I start wondering what my characters would think if they were in mine. Would they like the library where I work? My favorite view of the Barnegat Bay? And what would they think of Philadelphia?
I guess I'll find out the Philly answer soon. It's time to get all of us into the car and hit the road.
10 comments:
- Shauna (Fido and Wino) said...
Congratulations, that is so exciting!
- September 24, 2010 at 7:16 PM
- Andrea Mack said...
I'm sometimes later than I want to be, getting to work or getting something done, because I'm wrapped up in the world of my novel. But I haven't yet brought them so far as to wonder what they'd be thinking in the real world!
- September 24, 2010 at 8:36 PM
- nanmarino said...
Shauna, it was great fun. Very inspiring.
Andrea, I know what you mean. I love it when I'm wrapped up in my novel, but it does tend to interfere with real life a lot. - September 26, 2010 at 7:58 AM
- Stephanie J. Blake said...
I'm so glad you're writing again! It's so hard when your muse won't help. So happy for you and your dream come true.
- September 28, 2010 at 11:33 AM
- nanmarino said...
Steph, The conference was great. Met lots of really nice people and soaked up tons of good energy.
- September 29, 2010 at 11:26 PM
- Hilary said...
Ritch told me all about this.... What a dream come true! I am so happy for you. he loaned me your book... I can't wait to read!
- September 30, 2010 at 6:47 AM
- nanmarino said...
Hilary, Thanks for your comment. I had a great time at the conference. Hope you like the book.
- September 30, 2010 at 8:32 PM
Isn't it wonderful when our characters talk again?
Glad you had a great time at the conference. - October 2, 2010 at 2:40 PM
- cleemckenzie said...
Hey, your muse took a vacation. She deserves a vacation, but she also needs to know that it's time to get back to work. Well, guess she does. Yeah! Let's see what those characters have to say to you.
- October 2, 2010 at 6:40 PM
- nanmarino said...
Medeia, Yes. Communication is always a good thing.
CLee, vacation is over! :) - October 3, 2010 at 8:55 AM